The Observations by Jane Harris Read Free Book Online Page B

studied me a moment, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. Then she says, “Come through,” and turned on her heel.
    Here we go, I thought, I am in for it, because of the dancing or because I had spoke sharp to Old Bollix earlier or even because she’d guessed that I had deliberately mucked up his name when I announced him, a whole catalogue of crimes there was and so I went after her with a certain amount of dread, dragging my heels, for all I knew she could dismiss me on the spot.
    By the time I got into the parlour, she had settled again in her chair by the fire. I give her a deep curtsey and stared at the Turkey carpet. “Marm,” says I, sick to my stomach.
    There was a pause. Then she says, “How have you enjoyed your first day at Castle Haivers?”
    This question was, to my mind, designed to fill me with shame for cheeking the minister. I looked appropriately humbled.
    “Well, marm,” I says. “I have liked some aspects well enough.”
    “Yes?” she says.
    “But I do be thinking that in others it should be for the best if I tried harder.”
    “Indeed?” she says. Something in her voice made me glance up, I thought I seen a twinkle in her eye but then she blinked and it disappeared or perhaps it was only my imagination.
    She looked at me gravely. I thought here we go.
    “On the whole,” she says, choosing her words carefully. “I am of the opinion that you have done reasonably well today.”
    I said nought to that, I was waiting for the tongue lashing.
    “Just a few things to note,” she says. “I think it might be as well, for example, when you speak to anyone, especially a lady or a gentleman, to make sure that you look at them straight in the face.”
    “Very good, marm,” I says. “In the face.”
    “And perhaps when you are being addressed it would also be advisable to stand erect and perhaps not waggle your leg around
too
much.”
    “Yes marm,” I says. “Erect.”
    “One other point,” she says. “Just to bear in mind, when you speak to a lady or gentleman it would generally be better if you didn’t have your finger in your mouth.”
    “Oh!” I says a bit took aback, I was not aware I done that. “Very good marm.”
    “Generally speaking however I think it passed off quite well,” she says. “But now—have you written anything in your little book yet?”
    “Gob no, missus,” I says for she had caught me off guard. “I mean no, marm.”
    “In that case,” she says, “you may go to your room for an hour. I suggest you take the opportunity to put some effort into your journal.”
    I would rather have put some effort into a good long nap but I was that grateful that she hadn’t tore a strip off me I practically threw myself at her feet.
    “Very good, marm,” I says and made her another little curtsey. “I’ll do that right away, right away now.”
    Oh how easy it is to fall into the habit of bowing and scraping. Dear knows if you had took my likeness at that moment you would have said I was a servant girl to my toe nails.
    “I look forward to reading what you have done this evening,” says the missus. “And perhaps later you can sing me your pretty song.” I thought that was me dismissed and was about to leave when of a sudden she carried on, “D’you know, Bessy, that the Reverend Pollock is one of the busiest ministers in the land?”
    As if I cared the core of a cabbage what he was. But I says, “Oh? Is that right now?”
    “I always think it a shame that he only manages to visit here about once a month.”
    “Oh—dear,” I says.
    “Sometimes he only manages every two months. Isn’t that a
great
pity?”
    I think I can safely says that this was my first experience of how a lady of the missus breeding has the natural ability to tell you one thing while meaning quite another. She did not like the Old Bollix either! She was looking at me straight and there was not a whisker of an edge to her voice, but somehow I knew she wanted me to understand